onorous, continuous, deeper theme rising from its weight and
volume and movement; with the surging of the wind in the pines; with
the occasional cry of a wild bird deep in the new verdure of the forests
striking through the whole with a brilliant, incidental, detached
effect--no faint vibration was in its midst of the violin's string,
listen as he might. More than once he sought to assure himself that he
heard it, but his fancy failed to respond to his bidding, although again
and again he took up his position where it had before struck his ear.
The wild minstrelsy of the woods felt no lack, and stream and wind
and harping pine and vagrant bird lifted their voices in their wonted
strains. He could hardly accept the fact; he would verify anew the
landmarks he had made and again return to the spot, his hat in his hand,
his head bent low, his face lined with anxiety and suspense. No sound,
no word, no intimation of human presence. The moonshiners were doubtless
all gone long ago, betrayed into captivity, and Leander with them. He
had so hardened his heart toward his recalcitrant young kinsman and his
Sudley friends, he felt so entirely that in being among the moonshiners
Leander had met only his deserts in coming to the bar of Federal
justice, that he would have experienced scant sorrow if the nephew had
not carried off with his own personality his uncle's book-keeper and
postmaster's clerk. And so--alas, for Leander! As he meditated on the
untoward manner in which he had overshot his target, this marksman
of fate forgot the caution which had distinguished his approach, for
hitherto it had been as heedful as if he fully believed the lion still
in his den. He slowly patrolled the bank below the broad, thin, crystal
sheet, seeing naught but its rainbow hovering elusively in the sun, and
its green and white skein-like draperies pendulous before the great dark
arch over which the cataract fell. The log caught among the rocks in
the spray at the base was still there, seeming always to rise while the
restless water seemed motionless.

No trace that human beings had ever invaded these solitudes could he
discover. No vague, faint suggestion of the well-hidden lair of the
moonshiners did the wild covert show forth. "The revenuers war smarter'n
me; I'll say that fur 'em," he muttered at last as he came to a
stand-still, his chin in his hand, his perplexed eyes on the ground. And
suddenly--a footprint on a marshy spot; only the heel of